Titanborn by Rhett C. Bruno
Sunday, October 9, 2016 at 9:54AM 
Published by Random House/Hydra on June 21, 2016
Titanborn is set in 2334, 300 years after a meteorite crippled Earth, raising sea levels and cooling temperatures and leaving an unpleasant environment for the few survivors. Malcolm Graves works for Pervinio Corporation as a collector. He settles disputes, usually by getting rid of the person causing the dispute. Malcolm has survived in his job longer than most collectors. His investigation of a bombing sends him to Old Russia and then to Titan.
Soon after the story begins, Malcolm is saddled with a partner named Zhaff, a Cogent from Titan. A Cogent is a human who has been bred to have the characteristics of an android, whatever that means. Zhaff wears a fancy monocle and other high-tech gadgetry, but the details of his “breeding” and special abilities are never made entirely clear. Zhaff is young and ultra-competent which, of course, makes Malcolm feel old and insecure. Malcolm eventually discovers a secret about Zhaff that, like the rest of the novel, feels contrived.
Titanborn is essentially an action novel that adds a bit of family drama in an attempt to give it substance. Malcolm has an adopted daughter (sort of) who doesn’t want to follow in the old man’s footsteps. The circumstances involving Malcolm’s daughter (and to a lesser extent, those involving Zhaff’s father) are meant to add human interest to the story. They don’t. The action is predictable and the family drama is … well, I’ll say it again … contrived.
Malcolm is supposed to be an aging noir antihero who is also a good guy. He unerringly shoots people in the shoulder or knocks them out with a single blow to the head unless he decides to kill them. On the whole, his personality is standard for a novel of this sort. Like the plot, Malcolm just isn’t very interesting.
Rhett C. Bruno’s prose isn’t awful, but too many passages have a first draft quality. Bruno doesn’t have the kind of style that makes me believe a second or third draft would improve the narrative. Dialog sounds like it is spoken by teenagers, even when the character is a senior citizen. The prose is too dependent on clichés.
So, we have a science fiction action novel that doesn’t separate itself from the pack in terms of plot, characters, or prose. A science fiction action novel junkie might like it because it moves quickly and includes familiar science fiction trappings. Readers looking for more substance or an innovative story will need to look elsewhere.
NOT RECOMMENDED